The London-St. Thomas jobless rate has fallen to its lowest level in a decade.
Stats Canada reported Friday the unemployment rate dipped to 5.7 per cent in April, its third straight decline and its lowest level since April 2007.
1,900 jobs were created last month, 1,100 people joined the workforce while the number of people claiming unemployment dipped by 800.
The unemployment rate fell below six per cent only once in 2016, it stood at 5.8 per cent in January 2016 and rose steadily throughout the year. It has now fallen three straight months in 2017.
The jobless rate has dipped below six per cent a few times over the past ten years, but hasn’t been this low in a decade.
Nationally, Statistics Canada reported the jobless rate fell last month to its lowest level since the country was within the grips of the global financial crisis, but wage growth stalled to its weakest in more than two decades.
The federal agency found the unemployment rate fell to 6.5 per cent last month, its lowest level since October 2008 as fewer youth searched for work. However, hourly wages expanded by 0.7 per cent in April, the slowest year-over-year growth since it started collecting that data in January 1997.
Statistics Canada says the drop in youth participation helped push the jobless rate down by 0.2 percentage points even though overall employment was almost unchanged.
In Ontario, employment held steady in April. The unemployment rate fell 0.6 percentage points to 5.8 per cent, mostly due to a decline in the number of youth searching for work. This is the lowest unemployment rate for the province since January 2001.
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